Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society and other books.

Added to cato.org on February 13, 2009

This article appeared in the New York Post on February 13, 2009

Much of the "stimulus" bill is devoted to a backdoor undoing of one of Washington's greatest achievements of recent years - welfare reform.

One of the most important changes of the Clinton-era reform law was replacing the individual entitlement to welfare with a block grant to the states. In the old system, the more people a state signed up for welfare, the more money it got from Washington. The block grant broke this link, creating an incentive for states to help people become self-supporting.

But, as The Post's Charles Hurt has reported, slipped into the stimulus bill is a provision establishing a new $3 billion emergency fund to help states pay for added welfare recipients, with the federal government footing 80 percent of the cost for the new "clients."

Plus, the bill would reward states for increasing caseloads, even if the growth came because the state had loosened its requirements for recipients to work

This is radical change. States that succeed in getting people off welfare would lose the opportunity for increased federal funding. And states that make it easier to stay on welfare (by, say, raising the time limit from two years to five) would get rewarded with more taxpayer cash. The bill would even let states with rising welfare rolls still collect their "case-load reduction" bonuses.

In short, the measure will erode all the barriers to long-term welfare dependency that were at the heart of the 1996 reform.

Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society and other books.

Added to cato.org on February 13, 2009

This article appeared in the New York Post on February 13, 2009

Much of the "stimulus" bill is devoted to a backdoor undoing of one of Washington's greatest achievements of recent years - welfare reform.

One of the most important changes of the Clinton-era reform law was replacing the individual entitlement to welfare with a block grant to the states. In the old system, the more people a state signed up for welfare, the more money it got from Washington. The block grant broke this link, creating an incentive for states to help people become self-supporting.

But, as The Post's Charles Hurt has reported, slipped into the stimulus bill is a provision establishing a new $3 billion emergency fund to help states pay for added welfare recipients, with the federal government footing 80 percent of the cost for the new "clients."

Plus, the bill would reward states for increasing caseloads, even if the growth came because the state had loosened its requirements for recipients to work

This is radical change. States that succeed in getting people off welfare would lose the opportunity for increased federal funding. And states that make it easier to stay on welfare (by, say, raising the time limit from two years to five) would get rewarded with more taxpayer cash. The bill would even let states with rising welfare rolls still collect their "case-load reduction" bonuses.

In short, the measure will erode all the barriers to long-term welfare dependency that were at the heart of the 1996 reform.

welfare reform is and always will be a joke...here in nc they had work programs where you worked 8 hours and got paid for 30...nice job if you can get it...methadone clinics...all paid for with medicare...if you have custody of the child you can get medicare and it will pay for the custodial parents and the child...lots of custody fights are no more than battles over who gets the welfare benefits...people play the system...work the in and outs of it...have a child and get a free ride..hud..food stamps...free day care...i am always amazed at how a welfare queen can do so well...

i am not an anti help person...i believe in giving people help but not a free ride?

If the folks at CATO truly hate welfare, they ought to be against FREE TRADE which is making it so very necessary.

Are they?

Click to expand...

Did you read what they had to say? Where did they say they hated Welfare? They are simply pointing out that prior to 1996 our system encouraged States to keep people on the roles. Why because the more people on the rolls, the more Federal Money they had access to.

The Reforms Clinton Signed were aimed at ending Abuse, and waste in welfare. They were aimed at creating incentives to get off of welfare and back to work, and removing incentives to do the opposite. They were not aimed at ending Welfare.

To try and say they are simply against Welfare is disingenuous at best, and Dishonest at worst Edict, and I think you know that.

Can not a reasonable Man such as yourself see that we need some kind of Control? That we should not just hand out Welfare with out trying to get people off of it? That maybe it is not wise to have a system that rewards the states with the most people on Welfare. WITH MORE MONEY??

Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society and other books.

Added to cato.org on February 13, 2009

This article appeared in the New York Post on February 13, 2009

Much of the "stimulus" bill is devoted to a backdoor undoing of one of Washington's greatest achievements of recent years - welfare reform.

One of the most important changes of the Clinton-era reform law was replacing the individual entitlement to welfare with a block grant to the states. In the old system, the more people a state signed up for welfare, the more money it got from Washington. The block grant broke this link, creating an incentive for states to help people become self-supporting.

But, as The Post's Charles Hurt has reported, slipped into the stimulus bill is a provision establishing a new $3 billion emergency fund to help states pay for added welfare recipients, with the federal government footing 80 percent of the cost for the new "clients."

Plus, the bill would reward states for increasing caseloads, even if the growth came because the state had loosened its requirements for recipients to work

This is radical change. States that succeed in getting people off welfare would lose the opportunity for increased federal funding. And states that make it easier to stay on welfare (by, say, raising the time limit from two years to five) would get rewarded with more taxpayer cash. The bill would even let states with rising welfare rolls still collect their "case-load reduction" bonuses.

In short, the measure will erode all the barriers to long-term welfare dependency that were at the heart of the 1996 reform.

On the dole again is so true but once again it is the corporate failures on the dole. Fail, then shout the sky is falling and presto chango corporate welfare flows. Where would these financial geniuses be without welfare?

"An unequal society cannot help but be an unjust society. The most important item that parents in any society try to buy is a head start for their children. And the wealthier they are, the bigger the head start. Societies that promise equality of opportunity thus cannot afford to allow inequality of outcomes to become too great."

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